


“Don’t underestimate what a person can do to protect those they care about."

by Mx Magic Fluffenmew (PerpetuallyDone)



Series: Reconnection [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 17:36:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerpetuallyDone/pseuds/Mx%20Magic%20Fluffenmew
Summary: In which things go both exactly and unexpectedly as Gyro planned.  (A Tumblr Request)





	“Don’t underestimate what a person can do to protect those they care about."

**Author's Note:**

> DRAKOTTS ASKED:  
“Don’t underestimate what a person can do to protect those they care about.” Fulton Gearloose bc homeboy had the cajones to call the military on Scrooge that one time, I bet he'd be bad news if someone hurt Gyro

“So… Who is this important guest of ours?”

“Why do you assume it’s someone important?”

Fenton shot Gyro a withered look as he watched him straighten Lil Bulb’s little bowtie. "Doctor Gearloose, I have _never_ seen you demand this lab so clean. You live here, and half the time you don’t even make it into your apartment at night. One time I came into work early, and you weren’t even wearing any pants.“

Gyro stopped fiddling with the bowtie. Paying no mind as Lil Bulb hopped off the desk, he turned to Fenton with crossed arms and his half-lidded stare. "We agreed not to talk about that.”

Sighing, he shook his head and stepped into Fenton’s bubble. Though the duck instinctively took a step back, he grabbed onto of the duck’s shoulder, firmly holding him in place. "However, if you _must _know,“ He started, sounded quite exasperated as he started to straighten out Fenton’s own tie.

“Our guest is one Mister Fulton Gearloose.” He paused for a beat. Fenton’s eyes widened , but before he could comment, Gyro all too suddenly tightened his tie. He let out a stifled quack, hands darting to loosen it enough to breath. 

“Fulton Gearloose? As in your father??” He choked out.

Gyro rolled his eyes as he turned away from Fenton, moving back to his desk. "Who else?“

Finally able to breathe, Fenton cleared his throat and straightened out his tie one last time. He then turned back to Gyro with a grin. "That’s actually kind of a relief, Doctor Gearloose! You never really talked about your family much, so even though I assumed you were just being private, I was worried you might’ve been estranged or something like that.” 

No longer able to find anything to reorganize for the umpteenth time on his desk, Gyro settled for picking up checked his watch for the hundredth. He didn’t respond at first, and Fenton almost thought he was ignoring him. "…Something like that. This is the first time I’ll be seeing him in over a decade.“

The grin slid off Fenton’s face. He looked away, frowning deeply. At Gyro’s words and his own. "O-oh… I’m sorry, Doctor Gearloose. I didn’t think-”

“What else is new.”

Before Gyro could get in another barb, the ding of the elevator sounded. His eyes snapped the the broad metal doors. He went completely still. Tension in him coiled like a wound spring, ready to snap. The doors slid open, feeling so much louder today than usual. So much slower. Grinding almost. He didn’t even notice the rest of his team coming to stand beside him, lining up like a real professional team might (so he told himself so many times over the past week).

Finally the elevator opened, and an older man stepped off. Fenton could easily see the resemblance in the fluff of what remains of the man’s greyed hair, and in his tall but lean build. As Fulton drew closer, though, he could see he wasn’t exactly as lanky as his son. What with his shirt sleeves rolled up to display the muscle in his arms. For a moment, Fenton wondered if maybe the man wasn’t an inventor like Gyro.

Fulton strode across the room with a stern expression on his face. He came to a stop before Gyro, ignoring the rest of his team. "Son,“ he nodded.

“Father,” Gyro stiffly nodded in return.

With the same serious expression on his face, Fulton reached up and grabbed Gyro tightly by the shoulder, pulling him a bit closer. Gyro’s eyes widened behind his glasses, but his father cut him off before he could get a word in edgewise.

“Scrooge McDuck? Really??”

Gyro’s eyes narrowed as soon as the words left his mouth. "Yes. And I’ll have you know-“

“That cheap ass??” Fulton continued, hands not leaving his shoulders.

With a huff, Gyro started to try to shrug him off. His expression soured by the second, but his gaze didn’t waver from his father. "Look, I’ll have you know Mister McDuck has treated me _very_ well!“

Fulton relented, letting go of him and holding his arms over his chest. He shot Gyro a disgruntled, half-lidded stare. "Does he pay you in dimes instead of nickels?”

Gyro mirrored him with the same Gearloose Glare. "I have a room here in the lab, decent funding for my projects, as well as a personal budget. I’ve been here for over a decade. If I thought my brilliance was being wasted away, I would have left ages ago.“

Fulton nodded slowly, then lowered his arms. His expression softened a bit. "It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done that.”

Though he didn’t back down entirely, Gyro looked away. Seeing Fenton still there beside him, he silently cursed himself. He completely forgot his team was still there. 

Bringing a hand to his forehead, he heaved a heavy sigh. "Look, Dad-“

“Buh, buh, buh! Let’s not start on that now,” Fulton dismissed his words with a wave of his hand and shake of his head. 

“You said you wanted to show me want you’ve been inventing down here. So show me.”

—

Gyro had invented countless things in his lab. Though many were simply misunderstood, he couldn’t deny a few of them were unfortunately evil. However, he swore up and down he had vetted out those malicious machines when setting aside inventions to show off to his father. Fulton was always more of the fixer than the creator. Something Gyro hear about oh so often in his youth. 

This was supposed to be his opportunity to prove himself, and <strike>once more</strike> he screwed it up. 

He had even gone so far as to manually disconnect the Gizmosuit to keep Fenton from causing a scene. Ultimately that proved to be one of his numerous downfalls when the new and improved Gearloose Structured Currency Device went out of control, having gained sentience. Though he would admit to no one but himself, there may have been a _slight_ error in having gained his inspiration from when Lil Bulb hijacked the original device and became ‘Big Bulb’. 

With no suit and no Bulb inside to connect to, his team were in for quite the struggle against the, as Fulton put it, “fancy coin sorter.”

But Gyro Gearloose wasn’t one to back down. Even when the device had him pinned to the window, feeling the glass beginning to split against his back, he kept trying to talk down the machine. Any second now, Fenton would get the Gizmosuit back online, and there would be an even match. Or maybe Lil Bulb would finally have the opening to scale up the machine and get inside, just as it did the original. Hell, maybe Manny would snap and hoof it to death if he waited just a bit longer.

But none of those things happened.

Right when Gyro thought the window would shatter, flooding the lab with sea water and him with glass, Fulton beat them all to the punch. 

With a hammer gripped tightly between his teeth and an absolutely feral look in his eyes, he leapt from the nearby desk and onto the monstrous machine. He latched onto its side with the ease of no old man but Scrooge McDuck should have. The new addition to the fray distracted the machine for a moment, it’s headlamp eyes turning glaringly down at Fulton.

Unwaveringly, he glared right back as he continued his climb. 

By the time he reached its shoulder, it finally registered to the machine that he wasn’t giving up. Its grip on Gyro eased up, and its free hand lifted, swatting at Fulton like a pesky fly. But the machine wasn’t made to do such precise movements with its hands. No, it made to pick up hefty carts and pep machines. Not to slap a man off its shoulder. And when Fulton reached the head, it didn’t have to coordination to reach him.

Gripping the hammer with both hands as he straddled the machine’s shoulder, Fulton brought it heavily down upon the glass case that protected its ‘head’. The glass splintered, but it didn’t break. He bashed it again, this time with a fierce scream. 

And again.

And again.

And even when the machine dropped Gyro, blindly clawing for himself, Fulton didn’t stop until the glass finally shattered, raining shards down below with bits of wire and cogs following. He didn’t stop until the fancy coin sorter started to fall. Before he could make his jump, something snatched him out of the air. 

Once he was back on the ground, his grip tightened on the hammer again as he regarded his savior. "Another robot??“

The towering white machine with the red emblem quick held its hands up, rolling backwards on its wheel. ”_NO!_ No. No, no, no.“ It- No, he. He ripped off his helmet.

"Oh… It’s you.” Fulton lowered his hammer, eyeing the unmasked Fenton up and down. "And where was this thing ten minutes ago?“

Fenton frowned, equal parts annoyed and disappointed. "Doctor Gearloose disabled it before your arrival. He said he didn’t want me ‘Gizmoducking around’ while you were visiting,” he explained, shifting the helmet to one hand to do Gyro’s air quotes. 

A few feet away, Gyro groaned as Manny helped him to his feet. Lil Bulb stood nearby, but it didn’t hop up on his shoulder quite yet. "Well, how was I supposed to know it would gain sentience?? Evil? Sure, there’s always a chance. But _sentient?_“ 

He shrugged off Manny’s worried hooves and stepped closer to the other two, a slight limp in his step from where the sorter pinched his hip. "More importantly, what exactly was that all about, Dad?!” 

Despite having been saved mere moments ago, Gyro glared at him, hands held out as he started in on Fulton. "There were too many variables! Yet you ran in there like an absolute madman! Thoughtless and half cocked! You get mad at me for inventing these things, and you-“ He gestured to nothing in particular before clenching his hands tightly.

"You _rush_ in there like it was _nothing!_” He then threw his hands broadly out to the side, taking a step closer to his father. "What were you thinking?! _You could have been killed!_“

Even though his son stood shaking mere inches from him, yelling in his face, Fulton didn’t seem to react. He didn’t glare. He didn’t snap back. Instead, he frowned softly. 

Just as he did before, he reached over and gripped Gyro’s shoulders tightly. "Because no matter how much we fight, no matter how long we don’t talk to each other, no matter how _absolutely_ mad we get at each other, you’re still my boy. I know you aren’t the best with people, Gyro. Never have been. But let me tell you something…” 

His grip eased up. His frown vanished into a slight smile. "Don’t underestimate what a person can do to protect those they care about. I don’t care if it was that thing,“ He drew a hand away to gesture to the fallen coin sorter.

"Or that thing.” He gestured to Manny, not understanding a single indignant hoof beat. His hand came back to rest on Gyro’s shoulder.

“I would do it again. I love you, Gyro. And even if it doesn’t seem like it, I really am proud of you.”

As Fulton spoke to him in kinder words than he expected, the rage in Gyro’s once trembling form started to fade. His glare softened, but it still remained. Once his father had finished, he lowered his gaze, brow pinched and jaw clenched. "…You still could have been killed.“

"And you could have too.” 

For once, Gyro didn’t press the argument. It was a reality neither of them wanted to think about.


End file.
